In 2016, the Waltons decided that Massachusetts needed more charter schools. It must have annoyed them that the Bay State is considered the best state in the nation even though it has less than 100 charters.
They began planning a strategy to lift the cap. After Republican Governor Charlie Baker was elected, they thought it would be easy to add more charters. But the legislature refused. They launched a referendum and poured millions into “Yes on 2,” aided by other billionaire who love privatization. When the vote was tallied in November 2016, Walton and Friends (many of their names kept secret by Dark Money groups) got their backsides kicked. Yes on 2 was overwhelmingly defeated (62%-38%), winning only in a handful of affluent districts that never expected to see a charter school in their town.
They filed a lawsuit, claiming that the cap on charters denied black children educational opportunity. The state’s highest court threw out their case.
The main purveyor of Dark Money in the referendum was “Families for Excellent Schools,” which was required to reveal the names of donors after the election, pay a fine of nearly half a million dollars, and stay out of the state for four years. Shortly after, the New York-based FES collapsed.
Did the Waltons learn anything from this fiasco?
No. They have returned to Massachusetts with another AstroTurf group called the Massachusetts Education Equity Partnership. Some of the same players are present.
Professor Maurice Cunningham has chronicled the Datk Money intrusion into Massachusetts.
He tells the story of the new fake front here.
As he reminds us, “Dark Money Never Sleeps Follow the money.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“Why wait for popular opinion to catch up when you could portray as ‘reform’ what was really slow-motion demolition through privatization?” – Professor Nancy MacLean, Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Plan for America.
Privatization is a form of class warfare. The wealthy are determined to privatize a public institution to shift its value from being a public asset to providing value for private equity partners. The wealthy derive benefit, and everybody else loses. Privatization is not only question of value. It is also a question of democratic input. As a public institution most public schools are governed by elected representatives so that the public has a significant voice in how the schools operate. Privatization is both a theft of a public asset and democracy.
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retired teacher,
You are so right on target. Thank you.
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I love the way you frame your arguments, retired teacher. Your commentary is always spot on. Thank you.
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YES.
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Bingo! You nailed it!
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Billionaires and neoliberals in both parties have waged war against working people and our schools for long enough. Here’s a very interesting article from yesterday in CounterPunch about the demise of neo-liberalism in the UK: “Time to Wake Up: the Neoliberal Order is Dying” https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/09/26/time-to-wake-up-the-neoliberal-order-is-dying/
If neo-liberalism is already on the decline in the UK, where aristocracy has held power for centuries and at least half of their Parliament is ruled by the privileged, then we are seriously behind in America and need to catch up NOW. Neoliberalis gained power in the party of working people in the UK with Tony Blair’s New Labour party in the LATE 90’s, AFTER neoliberalism, imported from the right, was cemented here by New Democrats under Bill Clinton in the EARLY 90s, effectively turning the only party representing labor in the US over to corporate America.
I think our Progressive young adults are very promising and their time has come. As David Sirota wrote earlier this month in the Guardian: “Yes, let’s wipe out Trump. But take neoliberal Democrats with him, too” https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/10/trump-neoliberal-democratic-party-america
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Our country has more billionaires and multi-millionaires per square inch than most other nations. Many of self entitled wealthy are arrogant, and they believe they should have more rights than others. In fact, some of them find democracy an “inconvenience” they would like to suppress so they can dictate the terms of ‘existence’ to those of us that are not billionaires.
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For people like our young Progressives to come to power, in an entrenched Democratic party that is clinging to the schemes of corporate donors, workers need to be informed and become enlightened about what’s been going on, such as about “The Age of Fraud: The Link Between Capitalism and Profiteering by Deception” https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/09/26/the-age-of-fraud-the-link-between-capitalism-and-profiteering-by-deception/
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The Pioneer Institute is sponsoring the release of a new book titled “The Fight for the Best Charter Public (sic) Schools in the Nation” on October 16. At the event, Jeff Riley, the Commissioner of MA DESE, will be moderating a panel which will include Nina Rees, CEO of the National Association of Charter Schools.
As is often pointed out here, Riley’s charge is the 95% of kids who attend our public schools, yet he lends his position to endorse the charter business, despite voters’ opposition in Massachusetts of 2:1 to their expansion.
Professor Cunningham, in a tweet, sums up who’s paying:
Mass Parents United (https://www.maparents.org/copy-of-about-us), despite its origins statement about its grassroots, gets funding from the Waltons. Its CEO Keri Rodrigues, coyly called “Mom in Chief”, falsely claimed, then had to retract, that the Boston chapter of the NAACP, had joined this new coalition, which assertion was reported by the Boston Globe on September 24.
“Along with Massachusetts Parents United and Coaching for Change, the new coalition — Massachusetts Education Equity Partnership — includes the NAACP Boston, Latinos for Education, Amplify Latinx, Educators for Excellence, Higher Ground Boston, Massachusetts Association of Bilingual Educators, Ramos Law, Stand for Children/Massachusetts, Strategies for Children, Teach Plus, the Urban League of Springfield, and the Worcester Education Collaborative.”
Latinos for Education is another member of this coalition; its CEO is Amanda Fernández, who is a member of Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. Their funding comes from the Waltons, Chan-Zuckerberg, The Boston Foundation and NewSchools Venture Fund. It is yet another example of the cooperation between those at the state level charged with running our public schools and those who would privatize them.
Something that I find troubling is what seems to be an emergent narrative that parents, not professionals, are best suited to making decisions about schools. It’s what Rodrigues claims, and what has been declared a “unique lens” for Boston’s current interim superintendent, Laura Perille.
Perille has no education background, has never taught anywhere and holds only a BA in International Relations from Brown. Her previous position was as CEO of EdVestors, where she managed a staff of 12, and whose investors include Seth Klarman and his Baupost Group, which holds $92 million of Puerto Rico’s debt.(https://www.edvestors.org/about/current-investors/)
Perille’s advocates say that her experience as a parent of two children in Boston schools gives her both ability and insight into running the 56,000 pupil school system. I kinda think it’s more her expeience rubbing elbows with wealthy hedge funder privatizers.
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The only way to stop termites from infesting the wood frame of a house so it will never collapse is to eradicate all the termites that threaten that house. The Waltons are termites, the Koch brothers are termites, and Betsy DeVos is a termite, et al.
But they will not infest the wood frame of a house. They will, instead, devour the U.S. Constitution and state constitutions until nothing is left that was written to protect 99-percent of the people.
The house these two legged termites are eating is the United States itself.
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The termites have cleverly infiltrated the only pest control company in town. Termite control is controlled by termites.
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when the inmates run the asylum…. 🙂
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This post illustrates the tenacity of the major privatizers whose belief in the unregulated marketplace is as unshakeable as any fundamentalists faith in religions. But unregulated markets undercut the well-being of our citizens and democracy.
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Most of the privatizers seem not to care about the greater good or democracy. Their “choice” is all about them and their personal objectives.
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I’m driving up on Monday to interview visit and interview in a school in Springfield. If the opportunity presents itself, I’ll ask potential future colleagues for their thoughts on this.
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Virginia has only 8(eight) charter schools operating at this time. The enrollment is 57% minority see
https://www.publicschoolreview.com/virginia/charter-public-schools
More charter schools are coming, but it may take some time. The current administration is very hostile to expansion.
I am not surprised that there is a push to expand charters in Mass. I am reminded of the new Golden Rule:
“He who has the gold, makes the rules”
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“He who has the gold, makes the rules”
I wouldn’t call that a “Golden Rule”.
If you think it is a new Golden Rule, ask the wealthy French what happened to them during the French Revolution, ask the wealthy Chinese what happened to them after the Chinese Communist Party won the Chinese Civil War, what happened to the wealthy Russians after another revolution replaced them.
Instead, I’d label it “corruption”.
Lord Acton got it right: “Lord Acton writes to Bishop Creighton that the same moral standards should be applied to all men, political and religious leaders included, especially since “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely” (1887)
http://oll.libertyfund.org/quote/214
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I live in Arkansas, home of the Waltons and the Walton Family Foundation. Reading this article reminded me of part an interview our Education Commissioner (Johnny Key, who was head of the Arkansas Senate education committee when they granted the right to apply for charter school waivers to all public schools here, in 2015) gave recently in Little Rock. I excerpted the video, added subtitles, and posted it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BCCS7I1mVA
Knowing the link between Johnny Key and the Walton Family Foundation (including the fact that the WFF funds the University of Arkansas “research” wing where Johnny Key worked in the year between leaving the Arkansas Senate and becoming Education Commissioner) adds an extra layer of malice to the quote, “We’re coming after you.”
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